Tears of a Rose
by Bellalyse Winchester
Summary: "Maybe I have only one heart, but it's yours, Rose." Rose has lost hope, and blames it on the one man in her universe who loves her more than anything else.


**Ooh, a nice, semi-angst fic. I don't know, I wanted to write something sad..._Tears of a Rose._**

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I closed my eyes slowly, heart clouded with the black stains: regret, remorse, and bitter agony. I should have no reasons to cry; I have lived more in a little over twenty years than so many people do in their entire lives. In one hundred spectacularly remarkable lives, no other human on Earth could've lived like I have. I should be happy that I've had the times I've had. I shouldn't be crying because they're gone.

Memories cascade like the rain on my window…like the tears down my cheeks white with deathly pallor. His eyes—both sets—I couldn't imagine they were happy now, either, but he had no right to be sad. If anybody should've been happy, rain or shine, it was him. He was the _Doctor!_ He wasn't the one left in a world to which he didn't belong with a cheap substitute for his only love. He wasn't denied from me the words I had so willingly offered him; he wasn't forced to hear them spoken by the wrong set of lips that were so divinely alike, they tricked him into falling into them with pent-up passion.

Perhaps I had a reason to cry after all.

Mum, Dad, Tony, and…him…they were all downstairs, in the family room. He was in the _family_ room, like he belonged, like he was supposed to be here. He was the reason my Doctor was gone and I was stuck here. I irritably rubbed away a stream of persistent tears that began to fall from the void in my eyes. I'd prefer he was in the Void.

I'd prefer _I_ was in the Void. It's happier than here.

I bet he's found a new bloody girlfriend by now. I bet he's _completely_ over me; I was just some stupid baby-girl fling he thought he'd have on the side. What am I next to him? He's got Sarah Janes all over the universe he can run back to. I'm just a—

I suddenly realized my shoulders were leaping up and down as I was sobbing, likely _very_ audible from the family room. What was I saying? The Doctor loved me; I _knew_ it didn't need saying…though I had been dying on that beach, dying, for the second time, to hear those words.

Only one of them could say them to me.

Only one of them _would._

Only one of them did.

"Rose?"

I looked up as the familiar voice struck me from my reveries, but I knew the face peering back at me, eyes so innocent as I'd always remembered, belonged to a new man.

"What is it?" I asked him, forcing indignation into my voice. It was the first time we'd spoken since the TARDIS faded away for the last time and I'd shaken his hand from mine in horrific realization.

_ "Get off me!"_ I'd exclaimed, fire in my eyes. Mum's hands flew up to cover her mouth in astonishment; did she really think the substitute was good enough?

He looked, now, like none of it had happened; I could bruise and abuse him, and he'd always return with those puppy dog eyes he had no right to own.

"I just thought…you might be hungry. Pete fetched us all burgers and chips, and I didn't think you'd eaten in a while."

I swallowed; the fast food bag in his left hand was making my mouth water. "Yeah," I said after a few moments. "I am…starved."

The Doctor—_no, not the Doctor, the man with his face_—nodded, handing me the bag and making to leave. Then, he turned about to face me again as I dug into the bag for the chips.

I stared up at him, my eyes defiant. "What?"

His breaths became audible, and it sent a chill through my spine. "I have been patient," he said as I set the bag aside. "I have sat down there with your mum and dad for days, waiting for you to come down, so I could maybe share your tears, if nothing more. For days. I'd wait a lifetime if I didn't know you weren't so stubborn, but I know you, and I know if I don't speak up eventually, you'll stay up here forever."

I pursed my lips, hating the fact that this man, half the Doctor, knew me so well. He snatched my hands from my lap and took them in his forcefully; my gasp of surprise did nothing to stay him.

"I love you," he said fervently. I looked away, and he swept one hand across my face quickly. "Rose, I do! You told me once that you loved me."

"I told the Doctor," I replied lowly; his thumb ran circles in front of my ear, and my voice cracked. "Not you."

"I was him," he answered evenly. "I know nothing other than what he knows, and I want nothing more than to please you. You're the most wonderful woman, Rose Tyler, and you've known me for years. I _am_ the Doctor. Maybe I have only one heart, but it's _yours_, Rose."

With that he drew his lips to mine, and whatever wall I had built against him fell to pieces in an instant. His lips moved in perfect synchronization to mine, and as we finally tore apart, I raised a hand to brush his lips softly.

"You're the Doctor," I breathed. He nodded, raising his hand to grip my palm, and kissed each of my fingers in turn.

"I love you, Rose Tyler," he whispered.

I closed my eyes. "I love you, Doctor."


End file.
